The Terminator paradox

How neuroscience can help us understand empathy and the fear of Artificial Intelligence

This week, I’ve completed and published my new ebook entitled “The Terminator paradox — How neuroscience can help us understand empathy and the fear of Artificial Intelligence”, co-written with my dear friend and Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Mariana Verzaro.

The book results from several engaging conversations about concepts and possible approaches to building Empathy in AI, and it is a very exciting thought leadership exercise with some interesting technological, social and philosophical views regarding Artificial Intelligence from the neuroscientific point of view.

Introduction

It was in a Cyber Café in Florence, Italy, when I met Mariana Verzaro for the first time. She had just moved to Italy in search of her Italian Citizenship and was looking to meet new people, make friends, and know more about the Italian culture.

I was working on one of the best cyber cafes in the area. The internet train had a lovely view of Ponte Vecchio, one of the best tourist spots of Florence. The year was 2005, and we have been great friends since then, constantly changing our crazy experiences with each other.

I live now in Poland, working as an AI Evangelist in a significant company. I have a beautiful family; now, I am entering the windy and tortuous field of writing. All those written articles are transforming themselves into books.

Mariana Verzaro is one of the most significant sources of inspiration in my life. She has a degree in Fashion, a Postgraduate Degree in music therapy, and a master’s degree in Neuroscience. She is the creator of the "mverzaro" channel on YouTube. She talks about "neuroscience for everyone" and owns the company Círculo Produções.

She always had a tremendous entrepreneurial streak. At the age of 5, she set up a mini-movie rental company at home. At the age of 13, she was already planning and organizing events.

At the age of 16, she did an exchange in Brighton, England. At the age of 22, she moved from Sao Paulo to Cuiabá, in Mato Grosso, Brazil, and founded the first electronic music disco in the region. The extinct E-club was a landmark in the local electronic scene.

At the same time, she also set herself up as a fashion entrepreneur, opening the ". DOC." This multi-brand store worked with local brands. She was also a professor of Fashion History, Communication in Fashion and Photography for the fashion course at UNIC (University of Cuiaba).

At the age of 25, she moved to Europe, lived one year in Florence, Italy, and four years in Barcelona, Spain, where she improved her knowledge of the local culture and languages, in addition to gaining experience around events as a D.J., producer and artists management, she also worked with logistics for pilots and flight attendants for one important airline.

In 2009, she returned to Brazil and started to work as an artist manager and event producer with her company "Círculo Produções.".

Since 2012, she has also been dedicating herself to the academic area, conducting a postgraduate degree in music therapy in 2013 and a master’s degree in neuroscience in 2016.

In 2019 she graduated as a yoga teacher. In that period, I have invited her to take part as a speaker at The Artificial Intelligence and Design Thinking Conference in Wroclaw, which I have organized in Wroclaw in Poland.

She is currently a Ph.D. student in Neuroscience at USP’s Psychology Institute. She teaches psychology and works with researching different topics in neuroscience, including hypnoses, telepathy, and telekinesis, spirits, magic, religion, music, arts, fashion, yoga, and meditation. She is a digital influencer for the blog and vlog mverzaro and a respected speaker in neuroscience, technology, spirituality, Fashion, consumption, and an event producer and artist manager with her company "Círculo Produções.".

On my side, I have been exploring the concept of empathy in technology, especially in Cognitive Computing (Working on projects related to teaching humanoid robots to be as more empathetic as possible).

We started to write a series of articles where we shared free ideas and visions about empathy during a series of long virtual conversations (days of texting, endless WhatsApp audio messages, and hundreds of link exchanges) with Mariana be applied to AI in general. This topic has a constantly growing interest in the tech industry and our society during the last years.

Mariana Verzaro is an amazingly creative and qualified woman. As I mentioned, she graciously and competently navigates inside the universe of Neuroscience, Fashion, Music, Spirituality, and Anomalous Psychology.

While completing her doctorate in Neurosciences at the University of Sao Paulo, she has studied empathy applied to several contexts in Brazil.

Preface

Some people are afraid of science. They think it is like a weird, horrific monster, that it is complicated, out of reach, or goes against some principle. However, the reality is that science and logic are in everything.

In the love of a mother for her child, in the petals of a sunflower, in the pyramids of Egypt. Science makes us understand atoms, the universe and makes us see how amazing life is!

How many were not those who fought in search of discovering scientific knowledge! Descartes, Kepler, and many others who, with their conviction and persistence, sought evidence at a time when doing so were at significant risk of death, and many died from it.

The scientific method is to define an experiment so that anyone who tries to carry it out will get the same result. Making it clear here that we are not talking about quantum physics (in quantum physics, everything is possible, really).

There is no denying the importance of science in all aspects of our lives, especially in education, whether in critical thinking or teaching methodologies, and how it all transforms an individual. And when you change the individual, you change everyone.

The Purpose of this book

This book is dedicated to everyone interested in a basic understanding of the possible correlations of Artificial Intelligence with empathy, fears, and other emotions from a neuroscientific and practical perspective. It is open to pursuing further knowledge on these topics.

This is an experimental collaboration to unite the world of neuroscience with the general concepts of artificial intelligence. This is not an easy task since both subjects are complex and new when compared to science itself. Still, it is a beautiful experience to navigate inside these areas.

The focus of this book

This book takes a philosophical approach to share basic concepts and explore overviews on what it takes to build what could be considered an empathetic artificial intelligence.

Audience

The book presents a beginner/intermediate level approach for all interested in Artificial Intelligence, empathy, and neuroscience.

Some quotes from the book

The brain learns and memorizes all successful actions we did in the past and the non-successful ones. Even though our environment can influence our learning, we are born with the innate ability to recognize basic emotions. All these processes work side by side when we feel empathy.

Empathy is the ability to perceive or feel what another person feels from within the frame of reference of the other person, i.e., the ability to put himself in the position of another. This ability is essential and has evolved to help us survive as a species, to define social structures.

Humans are naturally afraid of what they do not understand. As a result, it is not surprising that it also applies to innovative technologies. They are often shrouded in mystery. Some technological achievements appear almost unbelievable, outperforming expectations and, in some cases, human performance.

Machines already control many things, we aren’t aware of it. Just imagine a day without your cell phone. Some people would die. Another example would be the banking system. If you think our money is just a number on a system that can collapse at any minute, these are just examples; our cars can be another one. I’m also a fan of A.I., but more than a fan, I think A.I. is inevitable. We need to start to know, to study more of it because it might happen sooner than we think it will.”

Imagine if that application could use Artificial Intelligence to analyze the whole picture: the environment, the colors, the light, your clothes, but examining your face, identifying your facial expression to figure out if you are angry, sad, or surprise with your new picture? This relationship between you and the software could you interact more emotionally with ‘A.I.

To avoid misuse and unintended consequences, AI must be implemented with care, empathy, and consideration. It will be every time more necessary to implement self-regulation measures and ethical values to guide interdisciplinary development and the use of artificial intelligence like fairness, reliability and security, privacy and security, inclusion, transparency, and accountability, but also is essential to have in mind that when using AI systems, we must be fault-tolerant, open to experimentation, and critical.

Available on Amazon Kindle

The book is available worldwide on Amazon in electronic versions with a promotional price (50% of discount) until May 04th, 2021.

Click on the following market link if you want more details: